Birds/Birding

For anyone who likes birds.

Numme!

For zoology this year I had to read all this dumb stuff that I already knew about birds, and learn how to be an excellent birder, and what birders do…

That totally changed my opinion of birds.

Well, that's too bad!

Ya.

I like birds. I really like birds. In fact, I guess you could say I love birds!
We have a few birds right now that are really tame. A male summer tanager is one; he lets us get really close, and talks to us. The catbird is another. One of the first days that I spotted our first one this year, I could hear his pretty but erratic song, so I made their mild alarm call, a short nasally reeeeer! It works better if you hold your nose while you do it. :-)
Anyway, he actually came to me, or came closer anyway, and started talking to me, and then started singing as he looked at me. :-) As I walked back to the house, he followed me.
I went inside not long after that, and took a nap. Dad told me that the catbird had been looking for me while I was gone, and actually came and was right under the back door, the last place he'd seen me. I still talk to him every now and then, and he talks back. He also comes and sings outside the bedroom window, and outside the living room window when we're inside. :-)
We had our first batch of baby bluebirds and chickadees raised in our bluebird houses. Also, our first swarm of hummers that came through left us and went further north. Now we're waiting for the second swarm. :-)

A little tidbit that is kinda neat: mockingbirds repeat the same call four times before they switch to something different, brown thrashers only repeat it twice, and catbirds have no pattern in particular. :-)

I would really like to see a catbird.

That's a neat fact- thanks!

You're welcome! :-)

Eight years ago today, I started birding, thanks to a Pileated Woodpecker at Hurkey Creek!

The varied thrush is a super pretty bird, with orange lower body, black streaking, and bluish upper body. Probably their most distinctive features are an orange streak on th face and back 'belt'.
Their call is a long drawn out whistle, followed by another of lower or higher pitch. They tend to call between 10p.m.-midnight in AK, and they are fairly rare.